An­na-Lisa Paul

T&T will know with­in the next two days just when and how much COVID-19 vac­cines it will re­ceive via the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer, Dr Roshan Paras­ram – the num­ber of two-dose As­trazeneca vac­cines will vary be­tween 108,000 and 117,000.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is set to pub­lish its glob­al roll­out plan soon, which will give T&T a bet­ter in­di­ca­tion of when the vac­cines will be avail­able.

“Fi­nal in­for­ma­tion on the first round al­lo­ca­tions, cov­er­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of Fa­cil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants, is ex­pect­ed to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed in the com­ing days,” the WHO as­sured in a news re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Min­istry of Health’s brief­ing yes­ter­day, Paras­ram said the num­ber they’re ex­pect­ing rep­re­sent­ed a “por­tion of the first 20 per cent” which is sched­uled to be de­liv­ered dur­ing 2021.

T&T has put in an or­der through the CO­V­AX fa­cil­i­ty, for 923,340 dos­es, which is to be de­liv­ered in tranch­es.

Last month, the Gov­ern­ment said it was ex­pect­ing the first set of dos­es in March, es­ti­mat­ed to be around 100,000.

The CO­V­AX de­liv­ery dates, how­ev­er, will on­ly be known when the roll­out plan is an­nounced and is de­pen­dent on coun­try readi­ness.

The WHO state­ment said: “In or­der for dos­es to be de­liv­ered to Fa­cil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants via this first al­lo­ca­tion round, sev­er­al crit­i­cal pieces must be in place, in­clud­ing con­fir­ma­tion of na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry au­tho­ri­sa­tion cri­te­ria re­lat­ed to the vac­cines de­liv­ered, in­dem­ni­fi­ca­tion agree­ments, na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion plans from AMC par­tic­i­pants, as well as oth­er lo­gis­ti­cal fac­tors such as ex­port and im­port li­cens­es.”

It added: “As par­tic­i­pants ful­fil the above cri­te­ria and fi­nalise readi­ness prepa­ra­tions, CO­V­AX will is­sue pur­chase or­ders to the man­u­fac­tur­er and ship and de­liv­er dos­es via an it­er­a­tive process. This means de­liv­er­ies for this first round of al­lo­ca­tion will take place on a rolling ba­sis and in tranch­es.”

Paras­ram has said that a sim­i­lar-type agree­ment with the African Med­ical Coun­cil will see T&T re­ceiv­ing a fur­ther 226,000 COVID-19 vac­cines as they be­come avail­able.

CMO Dr Roshan Parasram

Dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting vac­cines from In­dia

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne elab­o­rat­ed on T&T’s ef­forts to ac­quire COVID-19 vac­cines over the past six months and the dif­fi­cul­ties faced in get­ting vac­cines from In­dia.

He point­ed out that COVID-19 vac­cines are not be­ing man­u­fac­tured by coun­tries or states or gov­ern­ments but in­stead by pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies.

He told the me­dia that dis­cus­sions had been tak­ing place di­rect­ly with some of these sup­pli­ers.

Browne said on Feb­ru­ary 4, the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at in­formed mem­ber states that an of­fer had been ex­tend­ed by a pri­vate man­u­fac­tur­er in In­dia for per­sons to pur­chase the vac­cine named CO­V­AX­IN.

The min­is­ter said, “To this date, CO­V­AX­IN has not achieved WHO ap­proval.”

He said his min­istry was en­gaged by the Min­istry of Health to com­mence dis­cus­sions with the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion re­gard­ing the pur­chase of Co­v­ishield which was pend­ing ap­proval by the WHO.

The WHO ap­proved Co­v­ishield on Feb­ru­ary 15.

He told the news con­fer­ence that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had writ­ten to the Prime Min­is­ter of In­dia seek­ing his as­sis­tance in sourc­ing vac­cines.

He said the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion has been in­stru­men­tal in fa­cil­i­tat­ing fur­ther talks and, “The Gov­ern­ment of In­dia is in a po­si­tion to as­sist with the ex­port of vac­cines to our coun­try but the pur­chase agree­ment must be made with the pri­vate sec­tor.”

Ac­cord­ing to Browne, T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er to In­dia, Roger Gopaul was suc­cess­ful in reach­ing the Serum In­sti­tute, which pro­duces the vac­cine.

How­ev­er, he said, “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the re­sponse from the pri­vate sec­tor in­sti­tute was that the Serum In­sti­tute is not in a po­si­tion to ac­cept any fur­ther or­ders for vac­cines at this time.”

Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, Dr Amery Browne

Shirley Bahadur

Browne said the In­di­an Gov­ern­ment has since pledged to go the “ex­tra mile” to help T&T ac­quire these vac­cines.

Dis­miss­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion that T&T was re­luc­tant to turn to In­dia for vac­cines as un­true and false, Browne said dis­cus­sions are al­so tak­ing place with of­fi­cials in Ger­many, France, and Cana­da as part of broad-rang­ing ef­forts to pro­cure ap­proved vac­cines for T&T.

Mean­while, epi­demi­ol­o­gist Dr Av­ery Hinds said da­ta from the end of Ju­ly 2020 to now showed an over­all down­ward trend in the sev­en-day rolling av­er­age in the num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es.

In the last three weeks, he said pos­i­tive cas­es were now down to sin­gle dig­its which was an en­cour­ag­ing sign, and meant pub­lic health mea­sures are work­ing.

He urged peo­ple to hold the course even as the vac­cine is be­ing in­tro­duced in­to the pop­u­la­tion.

WHO on CO­V­AX roll­out

“Over the past sev­er­al months, CO­V­AX part­ners have been sup­port­ing gov­ern­ments and part­ners, par­tic­u­lar­ly for AMC-el­i­gi­ble par­tic­i­pants, in readi­ness ef­forts, in prepa­ra­tion for this mo­ment. This in­cludes as­sist­ing with the de­vel­op­ment of na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion plans, sup­port for cold chain in­fra­struc­ture, as well as stock­pil­ing of half a bil­lion sy­ringes and safe­ty box­es for their dis­pos­al, masks, gloves and oth­er equip­ment to en­sure that there is enough equip­ment for health work­ers to start vac­ci­nat­ing pri­or­i­ty groups as soon as pos­si­ble.

In or­der for dos­es to be de­liv­ered to Fa­cil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants via this first al­lo­ca­tion round, sev­er­al crit­i­cal pieces must be in place, in­clud­ing con­fir­ma­tion of na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry au­tho­ri­sa­tion cri­te­ria re­lat­ed to the vac­cines de­liv­ered, in­dem­ni­fi­ca­tion agree­ments, na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion plans from AMC par­tic­i­pants, as well as oth­er lo­gis­ti­cal fac­tors such as ex­port and im­port li­cens­es.

As par­tic­i­pants ful­fil the above cri­te­ria and fi­nalise readi­ness prepa­ra­tions, CO­V­AX will is­sue pur­chase or­ders to the man­u­fac­tur­er and ship and de­liv­er dos­es via an it­er­a­tive process. This means de­liv­er­ies for this first round of al­lo­ca­tion will take place on a rolling ba­sis and in tranch­es.

Build­ing on the in­ter­im dis­tri­b­u­tion fore­cast pub­lished ear­li­er this month, fi­nal in­for­ma­tion on the first round al­lo­ca­tions, cov­er­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of Fa­cil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants, is ex­pect­ed to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed in the com­ing days.

CO­V­AX has built a di­verse port­fo­lio of vac­cines suit­able for a range of set­tings and pop­u­la­tions, and is on track to meet its goal of de­liv­er­ing at least 2 bil­lion dos­es of vac­cine to par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries around the globe in 2021, in­clud­ing at least 1.3 bil­lion donor-fund­ed dos­es to the 92 low­er-in­come Fa­cil­i­ty par­tic­i­pants sup­port­ed by the Gavi CO­V­AX AMC.”